Chelsea will be the place to be on Saturday, April 18, 10am-6pm, as the Chelsea District Library (CDL) hosts their 18th Annual Midwest Literary Walk, featuring three national award-winning authors at historic venues throughout downtown. These wordsmiths will read from their works, share insights into their writing, and be available for book signing. This is a must-attend happening for lovers of the written word.
This year’s event also offers an opportunity for attendees to experience a concert reading at The Purple Rose Theatre while interacting with the actors and playwrights. The Walk is open to the public and does not require tickets or reservations, with the exception of the Purple Rose presentation for which participants will need to pre-register on the library event page. “Our goal is to ensure that the arts are accessible,” said Virginia Krueger, head of marketing & outreach at CDL. The festivities begin at 10am with the 2026 Purple Rose Theatre Company New Works Comedy Fest. Attendees will enjoy scenes from plays written by Michigan playwrights, including a new work by Jeff Daniels, Purple Rose’s founder and artistic director. Next up will be an interview of Chris La Tray by Michelle Tuplin, owner of Chelsea’s Serendipity Books. The conversation will take place at the Main Street Church starting at 1pm. La Tray is a Metis storyteller and an enrolled member of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians. He and Tuplin will be discussing his memoir, “Becoming Little Shell,” which follows La Tray’s search for his place within both the Little Shell Chippewa Tribe and the Metis people. La Tray has received the Montana Book Award, earned the High Plains Book Award, and has appeared on the Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction of the Year list. He was also Montana’s Poet Laureate from 2023 to 2025. At 3pm, Tuplin will interview Chelsea’s own Dr. Carmen Bugan at the First Congregational Church. Bugan is a prize-winning poet and writer whose poetry collections, including “Time Being” and “Crossing the Carpanthians,” and her memoir, “Burying the Typewriter,” are inspired by her family’s oppression and rebellion in 1980s Romania. She was named the 2018 Helen DeRoy Professor in Honors at the University of Michigan and is on the faculty of the Oxford Writing Mentors. She has also earned the Bread Loaf Nonfiction Prize, been awarded a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation, and was a Dayton Literary Peace Prize finalist. The last scheduled stop on the Literary Walk is the First United Methodist Church, where at 4:30pm Nathan W. Pyle will be the featured presenter. For the past decade, Pyle has been making art for the internet, reaching widespread popularity. His comic collections include “Strange Planet,” “Stranger Planet,” “NYC Basic Tips and Etiquette,” and “99 Stories I Could Tell.” And his children’s book “Tuck Me! Strange Planet,” which began as a webcomic series, has been published as a graphic novel and was adapted into an Apple TV series in 2023, with Pyle as executive producer. “All participating authors’ books can be borrowed from the CDL in print, ebook, or audiobook format, and Serendipity will offer print copies for sale and signing during the event,” said Krueger. Not only is the Midwest Literary Walk an excellent opportunity to enrich participants’ literary worlds, it is also the ideal occasion for them to explore all that downtown Chelsea has to offer — from unique shops, to enticing restaurants, to endless small-town charm.
